Just to prove a point that everybody already believed, Karen Healy rolled up her right pant leg. Etched on her right knee is the story of a bumpy career, one that has included two ACL tears, two agonizing rehabs and a series of frustrating comebacks.

Healy, a fifth-year senior on the women’s lacrosse team, has the perfect visual for her many ups and downs as an Orangewoman. After all, her knee looks like a crossword puzzle of lumpy scars, some pink, some dark.

When No. 7 Syracuse (6-2, 2-1 Big East) squares off against No. 11 Notre Dame (6-1, 2-0) today at 4 p.m. in South Bend, Ind., Healy may start like she has in three of SU’s eight games. On the other hand, she might not play at all. She’s watched three games in entirety from the sideline.

It all depends on whether, come game time, Healy’s feeling up or down.

“Right now, my body feels pretty good,” Healy said after Monday’s practice. “It’s hard to get going in the mornings, and after games I’m pretty sore if I’ve played. But (coach Lisa Miller) knows me, and she knows that if I need to sit, it’s fine. I’m not being a baby.”

Nobody would question that. At times, Healy, 22, is too tough for her own good.

After suffering the dreaded ACL tear on the Carrier Dome turf during SU’s 2000 season finale, Healy majored in rehab the next semester. She lifted weights every day to improve the strength in a leg that had lost five pounds of muscle.

At the start of last season, Healy thought she was ready.

“But when she tried to come back, she was really struggling,” Miller said, explaining why Healy barely played last spring after starting every game as a freshman and a redshirt sophomore. “I just don’t think that the surgery took well. There was a lot of pain, and we didn’t really know what was going on. Finally, she just decided to play through the pain, which may or may not have been a good idea.”

Following the season, Healy visited a doctor who told her that her ACL had been re-injured early in the season. Once the ligament is torn a first time, susceptibility to re-injury drastically increases.

The doctor told Healy that she’d spent the year playing on a shredded knee. In retrospect, the news made sense. After notching 39 points in 2000 and finishing third on the team with 30 goals, she recorded just seven points in 2001. On the field, Healy depended on pain killers as much as her lacrosse stick.

“She has a very high tolerance for pain,” Miller said. “She’s one of the few kids who could be capable of playing through that. Other kids just don’t have the capacity.”

Healy’s capacity has again been tested this season. She had her second ACL surgery in the fall. And although this recovery doesn’t have the snare of last season’s, comeback No. 2 figures to end only with the conclusion of a once-promising career.

Healy doubts she’ll reach 100 percent until well after her career concludes. In the meantime, she’s assumed the role of a player-coach, helping teach the team’s underclassmen. Having played attack, midfield and defense, Healy is capable of understanding and teaching the complexities of each position, Miller said. She’s even listed as the team’s back-up goaltender.

As for a teacher’s credibility? If it comes with age, there’s no problem. Healy was in the same recruiting class as assistant coach Lauren Brady.

“Yeah, she’s old,” joked assistant coach Amy Zimmer. “But she’s just so tough. How can the players not look to her?”

Although the generally reserved Healy prefers to dwell on her team’s success – not her own struggles – she prides herself on being the leader of a young team.

“I think a lot of the younger players look to me,” Healy said. “I’m the only person left from the first recruiting class, and yeah, I do feel old. The girls joke about it all the time. They’ve called me ‘Grandma’ a couple times, and they say I’m the oldest lacrosse player in America – which is not true.”

Healy is the only Syracuse player born before 1980, but she sees less playing time than several underclassmen. That would frustrate many, but Healy – who Miller said has “seen everything a player can see” – learned to focus on the ups.

“I used to think about all the stuff that’s happened to me, but I can’t think like that anymore,” Healy said. “It would just ruin every good thing that I have going on right now.”

Published on April 2, 2002 at 12:00 pm